A Look of Ruin
by Bitter Baristas
Summary: He phonetically speaks the spell and the further he gets the more quiet the room becomes. His voice is the only thing that breaks up the unnerving silence. Electricity tingles over his skin, sparks on the chalk outline drawn on uneven floorboards. He reaches the end of the spell and when the last word falls past his lips the pentagram glows blindingly. MCU 'verse angel and demon AU
1. Chapter 1

**Warning: Male slash, suicidal thoughts and attempt, depression, character death, blow jobs, anal sex, demon summoning.**

Stardust

"If you came to me with a face I have not seen, with a voice I have never heard, I would still know you. Even if centuries separated us, I would still feel you. Somewhere between the sand and the stardust, through every collapse and creation, there is a pulse that echoes of you and I.

When we leave this world, we give up all our possessions and our memories. Love is the only thing we take with us. It is all we carry from one life to the next."

― Lang Leav, Memories

* * *

"Let me know if you need anything, champ." Tony claps a hand on Peter's shoulder and stands, looking down at the young man. No, not a man.

Looking at Peter confirms that he is just a boy. His young charge is haggard, normally tan skin so pale it made the bags under his eyes all the more jarring.

Peter nods, gaze not leaving the patch of carpet he'd been staring a hole into.

Tony opens his mouth to say something, to pass on some kind of comfort or wisdom. Because he understands loss, knows what it's like to have loved ones ripped away suddenly. But he can't fathom what Peter is feeling right now. He had already lost his parents by the time he was four. Then Ben was killed, and now tragedy had stolen May from him.

Peter is just eighteen. Tony got to have his parents, no matter how emotionally absent, until he was twenty one.

He can say nothing to lessen Peter's pain.

He simply pats the boy's shoulder again. "Anything at all, just tell FRIDAY and she'll get me. Someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, even if you just want a different shampoo. Let me know."

Peter's chin tips up and he faces Tony. His former vibrance is drained and what's left behind is a sickly, listless creature. Tony's heart aches to hold Peter. His hands flutter awkwardly around him and land on his shoulders. He remembers the child hugging him in the car, when he reached over to open his door for him. Recalls how desperate Peter had seemed to be for his approval and affection. A teenager wanting for a father figure and picking Tony, of all people.

Two years ago Tony hadn't known how to give Peter that love, although he had certainly felt a fondness for the boy. A protectiveness he hadn't known what to do with.

He hugs him now. Peter slumps forward into him, but does not reciprocate. Tony reluctantly lets go, pausing to study Peter's face.

Thin, colorless lips part and close again. Peter shakes his head, a humorless smile tugging at his mouth.

"Thanks, Mr. Stark."

"I can stay." Tony offers, all of the parental instincts he didn't know he had screaming at him not to leave the boy alone. Not when they had buried his aunt earlier in the afternoon. Not after Peter had held it together during the ceremony just enough to keep his weeping silent.

Peter takes a deep, deliberate breath and shakes his head.

"I just… I want to be alone."

"Okay. Okay." Tony hugs him one more time and lingers in the doorway. Peter's mouth opens and closes.

"Thanks, Mr. Stark." He says after a long pause.

"Anything at all. You know where to find me." Tony says, leaving Peter to mourn in private.

He has a feeling he knows what Peter was going to say.

Can you bring my aunt back?

He can't.

* * *

The door clicks shut behind Tony and Peter goes back to staring into the nothingness that has surrounded him. Each inhale and exhale is a conscious effort. He closes his eyes.

Images bombard him.

May's body in the bathtub, submerged in pink water her hair floats limply in. Like seaweed, he had thought.

He is frozen in the doorway, and a terrible sound breaks the eerie silence of death. The scream is raw and animalistic. A mourning wail that rips out of him.

He crashes to his knees, pulls her from the water. He tries to breathe air into her lungs, but they are already filled with the same water dripping off of her cold skin onto the floor. His fingers brush against the impact wound on the back of her head. He looks up and sees a smear of red on the white edge of the tub.

With shaking hands he calls Tony, who answers chipperly. His attitude quickly shifts when he hears Peter's distress.

It takes two minutes of Peter gasping out words between hysterical bouts of crying for an intelligible statement to form.

Tony gets there before the ambulance, tries to pull him off May's naked, lifeless body. Peter fights against him, wrenches away from his grip to fling himself over her. He screams and cries, clings to her.

The paramedics have to coax him to let her go.

Peter goes home with Tony that day. He doesn't return to the apartment.

He insists on attending her funeral, and Tony sits on his bed with him for an hour afterwards until he finally leaves him to grieve alone.

Peter sobs, a broken sound that crawls up from deep within him. He hugs himself and falls back onto the bed in the fetal position.

It wasn't fair. May was fifty three and healthy. She didn't smoke and he'd rarely seen her indulge in what had been nightly glasses of wine immediately succeeding Ben's untimely death. She should have lived so much longer. She should have lived until her hair had gone silver-gray and she needed a walker. She should have lived long enough to see him graduate college and get married. She was supposed to always be there. She was supposed to be a grandma.

There was so much more life for her to live.

And now she never would.

He had cried so long the night she died he gave himself a nosebleed. He thought he'd never stop crying, but he had. He cries again now, and he thinks he won't ever stop.

But tiredness overcomes him and his sobs ease as sleep takes horrible awareness away from him.

When he wakes he tries to pretend that it had all been a nightmare. A creation of his unconscious mind-the result of eating to soon before bed. The lavish mattress and Egyptian cotton bed sheets give the truth away.

He chases sleep and the blissful unknowing it provided. Both elude him and Peter is forced to face the ugly reality.

His body feels like lead and he stares at the wall for five minutes before he convinces himself it's worth the effort to turn over. It takes another half hour for heavy legs carry him to the window. Night has fallen over the city and he touches the thick glass. Beyond his reflection are a million lights. Eight million people in New York alone who were able to keep living their lives while their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man hid away.

A world that went on regardless of the fact that his life had ended the day May died.

Wait. That. That was an idea. An old idea that now had a new appeal.

From his grief stricken, skewed perception, the call of death sounded like a sirens. The cure to his despair. His fingers twitch for the window lock.

"Peter?" FRIDAY asks.

The AI would no doubt alert Tony if he left, if she hadn't already.

There's no hesitation as Peter punches his fist through the glass. He doesn't feel the sting of shards embedding in his flesh as he knocks away the rest of the glass and crawls out of the window. He runs barefoot away from the beach house, lights already flooding it's previous darkness.

Tony will surely be suiting up to retrieve him.

He runs harder, but he has not thought this through. He's left behind his suit and his wrists are bare of his web shooters. He knows even in his muddled state of thinking that he won't get far. His solution to this is to veer course straight into the ocean.

Moonbeams and city lights glitter on the gently lapping waves. His foot slides in wet sand and he's almost there-

Armored arms constrict around him. They tumble to the ground and Tony pins him down.

He bucks and screams, claws at the sand. The ocean is yards away, a freedom whispered in its frothing waves. He could swim miles out, until his arms would propel him no farther. Then he would sink below the salt water, into his own watery grave.

"Kid, kid!" Tony's suit peels away and reveals his terrified expression. "What were you thinking?" He yells this, and Peter cries in response.

Tony holds desperately onto him as Peter curses his name, shouts words that pierce into Tony's heart.

"Why won't you just let me die?"

His thrashing subsides, the exhaustion of crying sapping his will to fight. Tony gathers him into his lap and cradles him like a baby, presses their foreheads together.

"Shh, shh," he whispers, petting Peter's hair and trying not to cry himself. He fails. "I know, I know. Shh, shh. I've got you."

Peter holds Tony tightly and they cry together.

* * *

Every time Peter showers it turns into a bath.

His calloused foot pushes the drain stopper down, a simple action.

Had May done it accidently? Stepped on it and slipped, fallen backwards to smack her skull on the tubs porcelain rim? No. The tub had been full of water, but hadn't had water running when he'd found her. Which meant May had intentionally been taking a bath, had likely stood to grab something and slipped. In her unconsciousness she drowned.

If she had hit her head in the same spot in the kitchen, would she have bled into her brain? Died anyway? Peter can't stop himself from thinking about these useless things.

The tub fills and he takes an instinctive gulp of air, lets the water submerge him, blows bubbles out of his nose that float upwards like jellyfish. The sounds of the house echo in the acoustics of the bathroom.

If he steels himself, gathers enough willpower, drowning himself in this way is possible.

His lungs burn. He can hear his heart beating. His mind wanders to Tony and the rest of the Avengers, to Ned and MJ. It would only take three to four minutes under the water to drown. Such a small time gap between him and death. Between him and May.

He comes up gasping, droplets flying off him.

He probably hadn't been under a full minute.

"Kiddo?" Tony knocks at the door. "FRIDAY said you're taking another bath."

"I'm fine." The lie cuts out of Peter's mouth.

"Don't make me come watch you," his not legal guardian warns.

"I'm fine." He hears Tony sigh and linger, senses the man's conflict, can picture him standing on the other side of the door looking helpless.

"Dinner will be ready soon." He says finally. Peter hears his departure, the soft paddling of retreating footsteps. He sinks beneath the water again and bursts to the surface sooner than before.

* * *

Tony takes him to see a therapist he refuses to talk to. If he unlocks his jaw all of his wishes for death would fall out, spill onto the floor like blood tainted water. He curls into the corner of her white leather couch and grits his teeth, crosses his arms. She watches him for an hour and when her egg timer goes off she opens the door for him.

She prescribes antidepressants he refuses to take. The emptiness that has hollowed him out is the only thing that makes Peter feel safe. He's not crying himself to sleep anymore. Not snapping at poor Clint when the man offers his condolences. Seeing Pepper and Natasha doesn't make him burst into tears that worsen when the women console him.

If he takes the pills he risks getting better. And if he told his therapist that he wanted to feel bad- needed to feel bad-well, that was giving her ammunition to use against him. Her calm voice would slither into his brain through his ears and try to rearrange his broken pieces.

"It's okay if you feel guilty, Peter." She had said in one of the weekly visits Tony forced him to attend.

I am guilty. I'm Spider-Man. I save people every day but I can't protect my own family? She's dead because I was out training with Tony. If I wasn't Spider-Man, she'd probably be alive.

He says nothing.

"Guilt is a perfectly normal response to death, Peter. As is anger. But you need to realize that while the way you feel is valid, it doesn't make the emotions true. You were not the cause of May's death."

There's a folded quilt draped over the opposite arm of the couch and Peter can see other people's hair on it. A long strand of grey, a curlicue of brown. Rich people who wrapped themselves in the false comforts of strangers, dished out for hundreds of dollars per hour.

The timer rings and he bolts for the door.

If he voiced all that he was thinking and feeling, it would only make him relive his trauma in more vividness. Force him to examine the emotions that drove him to punch out a window and run for the ocean with the intent of returning only if he was washed up on shore.

Tony hugs him that night before he goes to bed. Whispers into his hair that he loves him and presses a kiss into the curly tresses.

Peter can't lift his arms to return the embrace. Can't undo the wires that keep his mouth shut to speak the truth. "I love you, too, Mr. Stark. I want to die. I need help."

These admissions go unsaid and Tony squeezes him before letting go.

* * *

"Peter, do you want to go with me to see the wizard?" Tony asks, and Peter's automatic response is, "no." But another thought steps in front of his desire to be alone.

Strange had all sorts of ancient relics and spell books, buried in one of them was surely a spell that would help him. Either one to bring May back to him or to take him where she was.

Luck smiles upon him when Strange accidentally unleashes an ancient evil and needs Tony's help containing it. They both tell him to stay behind. When he would have once protested, he is all too eager to be left to his own devices.

He starts his search in a room that smells of must and mildew, covered wall to wall with bookshelves. The air is thick and dust particles are illuminated in a shaft of sunlight coming in through a window. This was the room Strange had exited in haste after accidentally releasing a "long dormant evil", as he had explained. It looked to be the man's study, and Peter wastes no time leafing through all the open books on his desk.

It takes twenty nerve wracking minutes, Peter jumping at the slightest sound, but he finds what he's looking for in a leather bound book, the cover scratched and so faded its original color was indiscernible. Much of the text was in a language he didn't recognize, save for cursive notes in the margins.

"Demon will grant one wish–" and the rest was illegible. If Peter was in his right mind, he would know this was a terrible idea. But he is so consumed by grief he doesn't care.

He wants May. And he'll do whatever it takes to get her back from deaths clutches.

On the floor he draws a pentagram in chalk with strange ruins encircling it.

He phonetically speaks the spell and the further he gets the more quiet the room becomes. His voice is the only thing that breaks up the unnerving silence. Electricity tingles over his skin, sparks on the chalk outline drawn on uneven floorboards. He reaches the end of the spell and when the last word falls past his lips the pentagram glows blindingly.

Peter's arm rises to cover his eyes and when he looks there is a being in the confines of the circle.

It looks to be a man, his skin a mess of open wounds and scars. White, pupiless eyes crinkle at their edges and the creature grins at him.

"Why have you summoned me, angel?" He asks, tone higher than Peter would have expected from his hulking, muscled stature.

"I'm not an angel." He stutters, and the thing's grin widens.

"You will be, I can smell it." He sniffs the air theatrically. "You're a martyr, too. So tell me, angel, why have you called me from the darkness?"

"I need a wish."

The demon's head tilts. "Don't we all? Where is your master, youngling?" He scans the room and spots the book in Peter's hand, eyes him from head to toe. "You're not an apprentice." He realizes aloud. "That makes sense. No teacher in their right mind would let a student summon me."

"Why?" Peter steps closer, the action almost not of his own will.

The demon grins, his teeth now taking the appearance of fangs. "I am Wade. I am danger. I am death."

Peter steps forward again, one hand pressing to the tangible, shimmering barrier that kept Wade trapped. Wade mimics the action, pressing against the barrier. Peter can feel the heat rolling off the demon in waves.

"Can you reverse death? My aunt she… she died." Tears prick his eyes and Peter blinks them back.

"I can," Wade drawls, examining his fingernails in a board fashion. An ugly smirk twists his lips. "A life for a life. Another would have to take her place."

Peter gulps. His chin wobbles with the promise of tears. Wade tuts and shakes his head. "So pretty," he coos. "Tell you what, angel, I'll make you a deal. You do something for me, I'll bring your aunt back, no life trading required."

Peter should ask, "what?" Or better yet he should say no and tell the demon to crawl back into the pit from whence he came. Instead what comes out is, "anything."

Something glints in those white eyes. "Come here, angel." Wade's tone dips low.

Is Peter imagining that Wade says angel almost affectionately? Like a pet name?

"I–"

"If you will it the barrier will let you pass through."

Peter experimentally pushes forward and meets no resistance. He stumbles into Wade, caught by arms looping around his waist. Lips capture his and he feels the kiss in his toes. It's all consuming. Dizzying. "Say you're mine, Peter Parker." Wade whispers against his jaw. At this distance Peter can smell the sharpness and sulfur that clings to Wade.

"I'm yours." God, he's an idiot.

"Close your eyes."

His eyelids suddenly feel heavy and they flutter shut. Wade's nose brushes against his throat, his breath making Peter's skin bristle in goosebumps. "We're going to be in love for eternity, I can already tell." Wade says this softly, as if to himself.

"Yes," He agrees, swaying on his feet. Wade crushes Peter flush against him.

"Yeah?" He laughs lowly, tongue licking a path on his throat. Peter moans, body instinctively leaning away from the touch. Wade's supportive grip on his waist tightens painfully. "If you are not mine, leave now and seek atonement, angel." He rights himself, towering over Peter.

Inhuman eyes bear into him and Peter shudders, feeling as though his very core was exposed. Wade doesn't pull away from him, but he also doesn't move closer. "Decide now."

He has been given the option to close the door he opened, an out from making a deal with a demon. The fear in Peter only serves as reluctance and he stands on his tiptoes to kiss Wade again, chaste this time. Sweet and sad.

"I'm yours." He confirms, and Wade thumbs the tears he hadn't felt himself crying away.

"You know not what you do, mortal." Wade warns, tone warmer now. Almost regretful.

"I'm yours," Peter repeats, kissing the demon again. It's frenzied, fearful. Strong hands push him away.

"You are pure. I'll taint you."

Peter meets his gaze. "Ruin me."

Wade dives and the kiss is bruising, a painful clash of teeth. It makes Peter forget everything. The reason he's doing this is lost in the suffocating haze of Wade's heat and smell. The demon's teeth catch and tug at his bottom lip, drawing a trickle of blood. Peter can't keep his cry of protest silent.

He expects a violent punishment because this demon must now own him through some kind of verbal agreement, but Wade hushes him gently. Broad hands that surely have power that surpasses his own sweep down his back soothingly.

Wade kisses him again, soft and loving in a way Peter can't comprehend. "So much loss," Wade muses, hand coming to rest on Peter's nape. "So much sadness." He sucks at Peter's earlobe and oh -that feels nice. "I'll make it better, angel."

That statement, coming from a demon, should sound condescending. But Peter hears only sincerity.

Clawed fingers comb through his hair and touch him everywhere-when had he shed his clothes?-not once do the pointed nails cut him. A hot mouth sucks at his chest and a ragged cry is forced from Peter's mouth. The world seems to spin and he finds his back flattened to the rough hardwood. His legs fall apart to accommodate Wade's presence. His mouth, filled with teeth that could rip his throat out, sucks love marks on his skin. It tastes and savors him.

* * *

Wade is lounging in his dark domain when he feels a long forgotten but familiar pull. Below him his summoning circle appears and engulfs him in flames. When the hellfire dies down he sees his caller. A human child.

Immediately he can sense the goodness in him, can see the sadness he's drowning in. Truly the human existence was tragic.

His demonic attributes, which had been dormant for centuries since he'd gotten himself condemned to his own little slice of Hell, stir awake. He wants to lure this child closer, steal the innocence he exudes and leave him broken. Alas, he's trapped within his summoning circle.

He goes through the motions. Each time the boy speaks he gets a glimpse deeper into his past.

Death, loss, pain. Yet the boy-Peter Benjamin Parker-endured it all. Strove to help others, put himself recklessly in harms way to protect people. Angels wings were meant to sprout forth from those shoulder blades.

Peter steps tentatively forward. Approaches his demise and wastes the sole safeguard protecting him from the demon's sadistic tendencies.

Wade is unable to strike the human down. No other who had summoned him was like this boy. They had been souls destined to become demons themselves. Peter's insides shine with light. Any other demon would not hesitate to defile someone as pure as this, but Wade feels compelled to protect the light rather than snuff it out. In the oblivion of his mind he hears the murmur of a memory-a past life. A humanity all his evil deeds had not managed to erase.

He was once innocent, in need of protecting.

He lays the boy out beneath him and is as gentle as he can be. Pleasure fogged eyes find him and Peter whines beautifully. Sinewy arms twine around Wade's shoulders and Peter's body arches to meet him.

The boy tastes like sunlight and saltwater. He tastes like redemption.

Wade can't resist shoving two fingers into the heat of Peter's mouth and the boy makes a muffled sound before closing his lips around the digits and sucking. His other hand trails down to Peter's chest and he rolls a nipple between his fingers, loving it when Peter thrusts up against him.

He grins wickedly and puts his mouth on the other nipple, knowing full well no one had ever touched Peter like this. It's a strenuous exertion of self control to suppress his demonic need to harm and dominate. But he manages.

Well, a taste wouldn't hurt.

He takes his fingers from Peter's mouth and wraps them around his throat, a firm weight that constricted his airway without blocking it. Peter stiffens beneath him, hands flying to grip Wade's forearm. He doesn't struggle against him, however, and Wade knows the boy has the ability to fight him off if he wanted to.

They stare at one another, Wade down and Peter up.

Wade finds himself transfixed by those dark eyes, feels like he's looking at something he'd been missing his entire life and hadn't even known it. His hand flexes on Peter's throat and the other rests on his hip. Peter blinks, something akin to acuity returning to his eyes.

They look at him curiously, and Wade realizes this is Peter when he isn't mourning the loss of his aunt. This is the boy who cracks jokes and makes everyone around him laugh or roll their eyes.

This is the boy he's going to fall utterly in love with.

The hand on Peter's throat moves to brush his red cheek with a tenderness Wade didn't know he had.

True remorse seizes hold of him. Peter is doing this to bring his aunt back to life, not because he wanted to be with the demon. He didn't know what he was doing and Wade was, and would continue, taking advantage of that.

He could tell himself it was because they were star crossed lovers, or any number of beautiful lies. But the truth of it was he wanted Peter and he was going to take him, keep the boy to himself for the rest of his human life and then his afterlife.

He could grant Peter his wish with nothing in return.

There was a reason good things didn't happen to the demon, and this was it. He did bad things, and the universe in all its wisdom doled out bad things to him. Peter was a good thing. Better than he could ever deserve.

He reacted to the universe's slights with malice, rage. He used his powers for revenge and personal gain. Peter was given power he could have used selfishly, but he set out to help the undeserving citizens that lived in the taint and rot of New York while anticipating nothing in return. Even now Wade can feel the light inside the boy licking at his disfigured skin, bathing it in a warmth only an angelic creature could exude.

If he kept Peter near him, that light would fade to embers. He would break Peter one way or another, take everything he had until he was a husk of his former self.

Wade makes a decision then.

He takes Peter's mouth again, reverent in a way he'd never shown to any divine authority. The boy returns clumsily, another reminder to how painfully young he was. How inexperienced.

Wade sighs into the kiss and breaks it, looking down at Peter's pretty face. His head is tilted back and his eyes are half lidded, kiss swollen lips parted around heavy breaths. He seems to wait, suspended, for Wade.

The darkness in him flares and his teeth ache to tear into delicate flesh, to liter his skin with bite marks. Saliva floods his mouth at the thought of lapping up virgin blood.

Peter is unaware of it, but his light reaches out and soothes Wade's rising desires. Brings him back into the control that had been slipping through his fingers. He sighs again and pets his angel's mop of hair. Peter nuzzles into the touch.

Wade stands, uses his grip on Peter's hair to guide him onto his knees. The boy goes willingly, although Wade can hear his heartbeat quickening, a rapid succession of beats thudding in his chest. Whether it's from fear or arousal he can't be sure.

Those pretty lips part expentently and a pink tongue peeks out. Peter glances up through his lashes, and Wade sees the glimmering trail tears have made down the corners of his eyes. If he was a better person he would release his prey. Instead he brings Peter close enough that he can reach the tip of his erection. The boy tries to move closer, jerked to a stop by the hand tangled in his hair. His tongue prods the blunt head of Wade's cock, swirls around it before he settles for kitten licking the slit. If the taste of precome is disagreeable, his face doesn't betray this.

Wade lets him strain against his grip to suck him and then relents, his hold on Peter's hair loosening so his fingers can comb back to the cradle the base of his skull. The boy sucks him in, drool spilling down his chin as Wade breaches his throat. When he's sheathed Peter's lips are a seal around him, his mouth taut and his throat bulging with Wade's girth.

The boy swallows around him, unsure of what to do.

"First time blowing a dick this big?" Wade huffs a laugh, hand stroking through his hair.

Peter gives a muffled hum in reply, struggling to breathe through his nose. He blinks more tears out of his eyes and they trace the soft curve of his cheek. A few get caught in his lashes.

The tension bleeds out of him and Peter blinks up at Wade. His eyes shine with tears and his face is flushed, his mouth stretched wide around Wade's cock. Somehow he still looks innocent.

It's hot and wet and oh so good, but Wade pulls out. He rubs the tip of his cock over Peter's lips, paints them with precome. Maybe he hopes Peter will miss his taste after they part.

He would like to take his time deflowering his angel, balance Peter on the cusp of orgasm until his flush reached his chest and he was begging, but he knows the boy has powerful friends. While he is physically imprisoned in his summoning circle his demonic senses extend far beyond. He hears and sees things Peter is deaf and blind to.

The wizard, a worthy foe, fights with the man of metal and they will soon return to this place.

He could go on like this for hours, but all good things must come to an end. And Peter was the best thing Wade had ever seen.

A bit of magic conjures oil he uses to stretch Peter. He gets one finger in and the boy whines, trying to wriggle away from the intrusion. He rubs his pulsing insides with the pad of his finger, slowly in and out. Peter's hyperventilating breaths settle into a calmer rhythm. Wade twists his finger and pushes into the knuckle.

He searches for the spot that will make Peter's toes curl and when he finds it the boy sobs, arching in what must be an involuntary motion. After what can only be about a minute Peter's body pushes down to meet the exploring finger and Wade adds a second. He scissors the tight hole open and when he adds a third finger Peter gasps so violently spittle flies from his mouth.

Wade slicks his member and lines himself up at the stretched hole, presses inside Peter's pliant body. It's a battle to pop past the ring of muscle.

Slender, trembling thighs clamp down around his thighs.

The boy chokes on garbled cries. He might say "please," or "stop," or "it hurts." But Wade is pretty sure its his name.

Scrambling fingers find purchase on his shoulders and scratch at him, drag him down so his body covers Peter's shaking one.

Peter's heat flutters around him and Wade can only restrain himself from moving for a few moments. He sets a slow, steady pace. He would like to pound into his angel with a punishing force, leave inkwell imprints of his fingertips on Peter's hips, but he can't justify hurting the little one anymore than he already has.

Besides, this speed lets him feel the sweet drag of Peter against his scarred flesh and the sight of Peter shuddering beneath him is worth it.

As much as he loves watching pleasure spill across Peter's face he hauls the boy up and repositions them so that he's sitting cross legged, Peter's forehead pressed to his shoulder. He jerks Peter off, the both of them rapidly approaching completion.

"Okay, angel. Are you ready?"

Peter's mouth falls open to question him, a gasp forced from him in the place of words. Sharp teeth sink into his throat over his pulse point. His scream is lost in the roar of magic around them.

* * *

Peter wakes up beneath a severely missed water stained ceiling. Around him are a hundred sounds. Traffic, groaning pipes, dishwashers rattling in other apartments.

Most importantly the sound of someone shuffling around in the kitchen.

He bolts out of bed and into the kitchen to see May preparing coffee. She glances over her shoulder and smiles. Her face is bare of makeup but rosy with life, the pallor of death gone. Beneath her glasses her eyes are fringed with a thin network of wrinkles. Flashes of silver run throughout her tangled topknot of brown hair and gold stud earrings are pinned into her ears. They match the delicate gold chain necklace she's not wearing, and those pieces both match the wedding ring she no longer wears.

She's really there. Peter knows this because he couldn't imagine her in this much detail after they buried her. If he pictured her all he could imagine was her body in the bathtub, or laying on the white satin bedding of her casket.

"You're up early for a Saturday." She had gone back to making her coffee and looks back at him as she speaks. She stops immediately. "Peter? Are you crying?"

He hugs her tightly. Her body is warm and alive.

She returns the embrace, confused but always happy to hug her nephew.

Later he wonders if it had all been a hyper realistic dream, but as he dresses for the day he sees a scar in the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

It's the outline of teeth.

A/N: I do not own Spider-Man or Deadpool.


	2. Chapter 2

Wade is a slave to the memory of milky skin and brown eyes.

He can't stop seeing Peter on his knees, looking up at him with spit and come slicked lips, the fear and pain within him dwindling as Wade's presence burned everything else away. The memory of the boy's sharp and slender body laid out beneath him, the feeling of Peter's phantom weight pulling him down, is forever branded on his mind.

Peter's taste has faded and he never realized how his mouth tasted of ash before the boy's kiss left him knowing another flavor. Peter's lips on his was like sinking below the jade waves of the ocean and watching sunlight ripple on the sand. His kiss was not only redemption, it was a resurrection. It's something Wade needs to feel again.

He imagines cupping the boy's jaw in his hands, caressing his skin in a gentle way that wasn't reflective of the demanding kiss he wants to steal. He knows it would be too much; smothering. Peter might push weakly against him before melting in his arms. Wade would make his knees tremble.

Or perhaps another scenario was altogether more likely. Peter might realize Wade had taken no binding claim on him, recognize that he truly had no obligation to the demon. If Wade's advances were unwanted Peter might flinch away from him, use his strength and quickness to strike. This fantasy is more entertaining than the previous, and Wade allows himself to indulge in it.

He imagines those doe eyes gleaming with righteous fury, a beautiful anger pinching Peter's features. And if he chose to attack Wade just might let the boy win. And he just may feel something like pride for his angel who would rise above all that was beneath him without Wade's heathen desire.

Wade thinks of Peter falling into him, of how he had surrendered himself to the demon's will. He knows that submission was not in Peter's nature, and yet how easily he had relinquished himself.

For a greater good, Wade reminds himself. Peter did what he had to raise May from the dead.

He lets himself pretend that hadn't been the case. In his fantasies Peter seeks him out for another reason. The boy is as enraptured with him as he is with Peter. The same flame that has been lit within Wade burns too in Peter and he knows what Wade does. That, no matter how impossible, they once knew each other. Had been entangled together in every reincarnation, were born of the same star dust and drawn inexorably to one another in each new body.

Because their souls were conscious in a way minds could not be.

It's you, Wade's spirit seemed to whisper when Peter was in his arms. You're the one I was made to love.

Of course, this is nonsense. Wishful romanticism.

That doesn't stop Wade from daydreaming about Peter. The devotion that forms between them is tentative and slow, and he isn't sure why he imagines it this way.

He could have had the boy, staked an undeniable bond that would have made Peter helpless but to obey his will. Peter spoke the words that made a thrill shiver through Wade, "I'm yours." He said them willingly, and as he did his body swayed closer to Wade like a flower following the sun.

The declaration at the time had sent a pulse of arousal to Wade's cock. As he thinks of them now they cause a different feeling. It's an emotion he hasn't been acquainted with for centuries-affection. Peter inspires a gentleness Wade couldn't remember having. Even when he was human.

In truth he remembers little from when he was a man. His humanity had been all but swept away in the hot wash of blood he bathed himself in. And damnation contorts the soul until it shares no resemblance of what it once was.

Sometimes, when he sits to think of nothing, flashes of memory will burst through his mind. The inklings are most often fleeting, but over the years he has strung the shattered bits together.

He remembers a woman with long, flaxen hair that has been dulled over the years. Her eyes are a warm hazel that smile when they look at him, but otherwise they are tired. His mother, some part of him knows, but it's hard to make the connection. Anything else regarding this nameless woman is hazy or non-existent. He thinks he recalls that she died when he was young, leaving him in the care of a man who helped shape Wade into the killer he became. He reflects, with no small amount of satisfaction, that he murdered this man.

There are other pieces he brings to mind. A woman, her memory nothing more than a smear of dark hair and olive skin now.

He remembers a stranger's reflection staring back at him from a dirty mirror. Stubble on the cheek, lines of age and shadows of exhaustion taking the place of scars. Startling blue-gray eyes stare out from the glass. Eyes that have witnessed pain and death. Narrowed critically as a target begged for their life, never looking away when his finger pulled the trigger.

Sad eyes.

Wade wonders what made this man look like that.

What made madness glitter in those eyes?

Wade will never know for sure. He will never be privy to the facts of his life. Vanessa's name, how he loved her, these things are forever out of his grasp. He'll never know how, when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer, she made him travel the world in search of a miracle. He won't suffer the memory of watching the woman he loved crumble as hopelessness wore her down. Won't remember how, when he gave up on medicine, he let Vanessa drag him to a cockamamie witch doctor who wasn't so cockamamie after all.

And he won't remember selling his soul for a few more short-lived years with her.

These things he won't know. And that is a mercy he'll never be able to fully appreciate.

But he knows himself well enough to know that he is not the sun Peter should follow. Wade is darkness, and if he were to take his angel Peter's light would surely die. Everything he loved about the boy he would destroy. And he would enjoy doing it, too.

Perhaps once Peter lay in a crumpled heap at his feet, broken, he would feel guilt. After the high of murder had subsided maybe Wade would hold him in his arms and weep for the smote angel.

He doesn't remember where he heard it, but a saying pops into his mind. "In the name of love, an angel goes through Hell." Of course Peter does not love him. Should not love him. Could not love him. He is a monster and Peter is an embodiment of goodness. If Wade were to reach out and touch him again, he would leave a stain in the shape of his fingertips.

* * *

His resolution of distance wavers a bit each day. The basalt walls of his spacious cavern are marred with tally marks carved by his claws. It's something he had abandoned decades ago, for the longer he was here the more he knew how pointless the measurement of time was.

When one had what was akin to eternity it was futile to count down something as small as days. They trickled by like seconds to his kind, but since meeting the boy every day seems to stretch on.

Peter's name rests always on the tip of his tongue. He finds himself turning over in the last moments of sleep, his arm flopping out with the intent to draw a body that is not there closer. When he stirs awake he expects to see a peaceful, sleeping face.

But he is alone. Has been for longer than he can remember, not counting the two voices of his madness that emerged from the depths of Hell's silence when he was new to damnation.

They are distantly familiar, tones he feels he would have been able to place in life. He names them Yellow and White. He's not sure why the names suit them. Yellow is vibrant, passionate, impossible to ignore. White is deadpan and indifferent, coldly logical. They don't get along.

The voices bicker most about Peter now.

Yellow resents him for allowing Peter to escape the brunt of their abusive desires. Says they should have made taxidermy out of the angel. Taken his life and mounted his wings on the wall like a macabre trophy. When Yellow speaks Wade can feel an atrocious ache in his bones, the thirst for blood drying his mouth.

The voice knows this, and when he stoops to dip cupped hands into a pool of endless water for a drink it takes a sneering tone. Says they should have made Peter scream until his throat bled and crimson threads trickled from his perfect lips. Wade can all too well imagine lapping the blood away, swallowing Peter's sobs in a bruising kiss.

Yellow insists they should have starved him, beaten and used him up to the last morsel for their pleasure. It paints a delicious picture of Peter bruised and broken, naked and bound to a four post bed with his arms spread and his legs forced straight.

His body crucified even while at rest.

Heat rises beneath Wade's skin, the same maddening urge that caused him to kill hundreds seizing him. Yellow's voice distorts and static scrapes inside his skull, the buzzing of angry hornets. He can feel bloodlust burning through him like hellfire as his fingers splinter into claws. The taste of copper floods his mouth as his teeth rip his gums in their abrupt, uninvited transition to fangs.

Ragged breaths tear from Wade and he can almost feel Peter's skin slicing under his claws like silk. Hear his sweet voice crying out, begging for mercy-

Another vision. One he can not be certain of the origin.

He lays on rough pavement, one arm cushioning his head. The sun is blocked and he cracks an eye open to see Peter looming above him, hands on his hips and bent forward at the waist. A shower of glorious sunlight halos brown hair and he grins at Wade, free and easy. Peter, not as young as the boy who had summoned Wade weeks before, extends a hand.

"Wake up, sleepy head." The vision says, clear and so much sweeter than pleas to be spared agony.

As suddenly as it had come the vision flees.

"Did you see that?"

The voices don't know what he's talking about.

Wade tries to recall who he was lifetimes ago, tries to place the impossible familiarity he feels with Peter. He has delved into the memories of those who summoned him before, but never has he felt a connection forming. No, not forming. Awakening. A remembering.

The demon racks his brain for anything concrete, asks his voices if they know anything. They do not.

Peter is not an elusive memory. He's a feeling, and it felt as though Wade had been aimlessly adrift on a violent sea. And Peter was the port he was sailing for.

Which was romantic dribble. There were no conceivable circumstances someone like Peter would ever want to be with someone like Wade. Not now and not ever. Even beasts in fairy tales had more redeemable qualities than a literal demon.

So Wade uses his connection to the boy to watch him, fantasizes about what he can never have. Hungers for another time and another place where Peter loves him and they live happy lives.

He wonders if he can stand to whittle away eternity in this way.

* * *

By his count, Wade's resolve lasts for twenty one days before he visits Peter.

The room is dark; nighttime. The window he so often crawled in and out of is open to let in the cool air. Lights from passing cars flash on the walls and there's an ever present glow cast from the street lamps below. Outside stars twinkle in the city sky, twittering with the cosmos' gossip. Hung like a silver ornament is a new moon, glowing warmly against New York's light pollution.

In Wade's domain there was no discernable day or night. Only darkness or dim light cast by the fire he conjures from nothingness. But in the mortal world time dictated almost everything about the humans woefully short existence.

Tonight there are many sinners slinking out of the muck, taking full advantage of Spider-Man's sudden disappearance. Peter's suit is stashed away in his closet, hidden in an unassuming biscuit tin for when he's ready to leave May's side. To divert Tony's suspicions about his seemingly sudden change of heart regarding vigilantism Peter uses the excuse that he needs to focus on applying for college. And indeed his desk is cluttered with admission papers. His frankenstein of a computer, made from salvaged parts gutted from other units and carefully put together, has been replaced by a new, sleek laptop. A graduation gift from Tony Stark, Wade knew from all his spying.

He glances over all these things, sees a scattering of elaborate lego creations, a vintage Star Wars poster, and an autographed one of Iron Man. Such high esteem his angel held Tony with. Wade wonders if Peter could ever regard him with half that affection.

He doubts it, and he knows for certain that he was undeserving of such adoration.

Wade pulls back to look at Peter's room as a whole. It's messy. Clothes piled on the floor and garbage overflowing from his desk side trash bin. Everything about it is a proclamation of youth. Peter is young, far too young for Wade to be paying attention to. He is centuries old. Has not walked the earth in human form for several lifetimes. Peter would always be too young while he was alive. Perhaps fate would bring them together again in the future, when Peter was a reborn angel with glorious wings extending from his shoulder blades and glowing with celestial beauty.

He might stumble across Wade by chance, feel the familiarity between them that the demon feels now.

If he could wait Peter might seek him out for the right reasons.

If he can keep this last illusion of distance between them he might evade the Hell that has yet to truly catch up with him. He stands beside Peter's bed, unmoving. If he holds his breath, he can resist the temptation of taking his angel. If he stays like this, perfectly still, it will be like he's not here at all.

Wade wonders when Peter will take to the crime riddled streets again since linking his heroism to his aunt's death. He could tell the boy that no blame should weigh on him. Every human had a timer counting down to the day they were destined to die, and May's had hit zero. It was a simple thing to add a few decades onto a life as long as the human was of no great consequence. Had the woman been of cosmic importance Wade would probably have had to face some kind of repercussion. But May was a speck of dust in the cosmic sense and if she died forty years later than she was meant to, well, no one would notice.

Like Peter, May is asleep. Even if she were to wake and peek into her nephew's room there would be no cause for alarm as Wade has taken a form no human could perceive. His tangibility, too, phases in and out depending on his wishes.

Soft breaths puff past Peter's slightly parted lips and in sleep he has kicked off his sheets, leaving him exposed. He wears only boxers, the fabric faded and stretched. At the same time it leaves too much and too little to the imagination.

Peter's ass is plump and ripe, on display because the boy favors sleeping on his stomach with his legs obscenely spread, one of them higher than the other and hooked. Wade stands motionless even though he doesn't have to. He stays that way for a few agonizing minutes while two disagreeing sides of him war.

The craving that he should ruthlessly suppress wins and Wade runs a calloused hand along the length of Peter's spine. The boy's skin radiates warmth and Wade continues his exploration of the supple flesh. His scars catch on the smoothness of Peter's skin and the sleeping human shifts, unconsciously following the touch.

That is a treat in itself. The moan Peter gives is godsent.

Wade plays with his floppy curls and he really doesn't intend to do more. He's not a rapist by nature. Taking advantage of Peter before had been just that-taking advantage. Peter could have decided to go and Wade would have let him. But as he's combing his fingers through silken locks, gently tugging knots out while he tries to push away the memory of gripping Peter's hair to put him on his knees, Peter starts rutting into his mattress.

Wade's control snaps.

He knows it's wrong, and that hardly slows him down as he presses an open mouthed kiss to Peter's nape. He leaves a trail of kisses down the line of his spine and doesn't hesitate to slide the boy's underwear down over the curve of his ass. Unaware of it, Peter's hips angle up to let Wade pull the underwear all the way off.

The demon inhales sharply, going still as he takes a moment to sincerely appreciate Peter's body, as he hadn't been able to their first time together. Peter's legs are long and toned, ropes of strong muscle below the skin of his slender thighs. He's beautiful.

While Wade won't risk kissing Peter on the mouth, he will do something much more violating. He thumbs apart lush, heavy cheeks and licks a stripe over Peter's centre. He briefly laments that Peter hadn't been sleeping on his back, because the thought of swallowing his angel's cock makes his own twitch and swell. He hadn't been able to savor that part of Peter their first time together, although it had fit perfectly in his hand. Wade is confident he could swallow Peter whole, suck him down until moans of pleasure turned into wet sobs from the overstimulation. Wade could keep Peter in his throat for hours.

The demon wonders what Peter's refractory time would be, given his powers and age. How many times could he come until Wade was forcing dry orgasms out of him? He'd love to find out, but for now that remains a question better left unanswered.

Wade might not be able-or willing-to answer those queries, but what he's taking is enough to sate his needs for now.

Greedy fingers grope Peter's ass as an impatient tongue prods at his puckered hole. He sucks and thrusts inside shallowly, licking and tasting his unwitting lover.

Peter's hips push back against his mouth and Wade slides a finger into the tight heat. He pulls down on the rim and thrusts his tongue in, backing away to admire the fluttering hole. Peter's moans grow louder and more desperate. His lips close over the boy's sweetness and he sucks hard.

Peter's hips stutter as he moans, high-pitched, into his pillow. His release splatters on his bed sheets. Wade covers his nakedness with a blanket, leaves the come to cool. After all, it's the only way he can leave a mark on Peter without leaving the purple of bruises.

* * *

Wade watches Peter every night and almost every day. He learns that the boy makes his coffee too strong and adds extra cream and sugar to compensate.

Peter favors old jeans and cotton T-shirts, and at the bottom of his dresser drawer are two T-shirts he only wears to bed. One is red with Iron Man on it; the other is blue with a character called Captain America on it. The Avengers, they're called. Peter is obsessed with the team, and it's a bittersweet thing to see his angel gush about the hero's to Ned.

The demon's heart beats faster when Peter's face lights up with excitement as he talks about the Avengers. It's a beautiful thing to witness, but then Wade reminds himself that his angel admires heros. People who are saviors. It's one of many nails in the coffin that is the relationship Wade is trying not to hope for.

Peter couldn't harbor love for a monster, and if he did, his goodness would be tainted.

This knowledge is enough to keep Wade at bay.

His hands ache to reach for Peter, to pet unkempt hair and rake his nails down strong shoulders. Forcing them to stay at his sides is a herculean effort.

Watching is what he allows himself to have, and he soaks up all that Peter does. The boy can lose himself in hours of science and math equations, but has to go to May for proofreading because grammar and spelling isn't his forte. He struggles to sit still, and when he's doing school work his left leg bounces up and down ceaselessly. If he gets frustrated he'll stomp to his bed, flop onto the mattress and groan. Sometimes he'll lay there for long stretches of time, staring blankly at his smoke colored wall.

Wade studies him, tries to discern the thoughts flitting behind glazed over eyes. Does he think of May's body, submerged in pink tinted water? Or perhaps he thinks of others lost. Dead parents and uncles. It's possible he thinks of the night he courted death, bare feet slipping in gritty, cold sand. Screaming and resisting the man he loved so much, begging for the sweet release of death. If he had succeeded, would their paths have crossed? Suicide would not equate to automatic damnation, as Wade understands many human religions preach. Peter was destined to become a holy creature, a herald of something greater than the demon could comprehend.

The boy would be enveloped into heavenly arms, cradled and cared for when Wade was left to writhe in agony on the black, porous rocks of Hell. He died unprepared to meet his God, and he never did. No redemption existed for the soul he sold-the soul that had been forsaken. Peter would face no torment. He'd become the angel he was meant to be, and Wade might never have gotten to put his corrupting hands on the boy.

Perhaps Peter thinks of him.

When the day's mundane chores are done his angel goes to watch television with May, sprawling on the couch with his head cushioned on her thigh. She smiles down at him, combs her fingers through his hair absentmindedly while she watches whatever sitcom happens to be on. The glare of the television is reflected on her glasses.

While her attention is on the show, Peter's is on her. Wade can see the relief and love in Peter's eyes every time he looks at May, as if he thought she would disappear if he let her out of his sight.

Giving May new life had been righting a terrible wrong. But he had taken a beautiful thing and corrupted it, perverted it.

Wade lingers at Peter's bedside every night.

He's going to rot eternally.

* * *

Peter's life settles back into normality. He finds that in having his wish granted time was not rewound. The morning he awoke in his bedroom was not the day May died, but the day after he summoned Wade.

No one seemed to hold memory of the alternation that had occurred, although the next time he sees Strange the man's gaze lingers on him a little too long to be comfortable. Peter watches his microexpressions anxiously through the corner of his eye. His eyebrows pinch together and his lips purse for a moment, and then the signs of deep, troublesome thought vanish from his face.

Peter exhales in relief and tries to act normal. Strange doesn't pay him any extra attention. Tony does.

After they have taken care of the latest world-threatening villain, Tony ushers him away from Strange with no real sense of urgency.

"You okay, kid? You seem out of it."

The concern is casual, but it reminds Peter of Tony comforting him as best he could after May's death. Tony had tried so hard to help him. The man who had always seemed larger than life and too high up on a pedestal for anyone to touch had hugged him. Laid on the bed he gave Peter and held him while he cried. He let him dry his tears and runny nose on his shoulder and all the while he never stopped rubbing his back as Peter struggled to breathe through his fits.

Tony took him into his home, had seen the boy at his worst and let Peter see him at his most human.

He throws his arms around Tony. "I'm great, Mr. Stark."

Bewilderment falls over the man but he returns the hug, pats Peter's back awkwardly.

"Okay, kid."

Peter doesn't release him until Tony drops his arms and coughs. "You can let go now."

He does and smiles with a brightness that is only partially phoned in. "Training next week?" Tony asks hopefully.

Peter's smile falters. He recovers it a moment later. "Rain check." He assures.

* * *

Peter's heart remains hollow. Not the gaping maw May's death had torn open, but an ever present longing he couldn't place.

It's a feeling he could ignore when he kept moving, but the second he had a moment to think the yearning washed over him anew. Every time he looks up at the star strewn sky he feels like something dear to him had been lost.

No , he thinks. Not something he'd lost, for his life was the same as before. Still, there's an absence that wasn't there before. A quiet sadness, like standing at the shore of a dead sea and mourning it's emptiness.

He waits, searching for Wade's face in every crowd and expecting Wade to pop up around any corner. He doesn't. Peter feels like a caged tiger, pacing the confines of its prison and waiting for something-anything-to happen.

A month goes by. Wade has not revealed himself, and Peter wonders when he'll come around to exact his pound of flesh. He goes about his life as best he can, trying to forget the demons touch which clings stubbornly to his skin. He didn't-couldn't-be wanting to see that scarred face again.

Wanting to see Wade again was insane and he knew it. The demon had surely bewitched him. That was the only explanation as to why the memory of Wade lingered in the back of his mind. Wade had agreed to grant his wish in exchange for saying he belonged to the demon.

So why had Wade not showed up? Had the claim been on his soul? Had he inadvertently sold his soul? Peter groans, agitation crawling across his skin.

He was clearly linked to the demon. These emotions weren't his. Anything Wade had made him feel was the result of something supernatural. He would not develop feelings for a demon he met once. And in that first and only meeting Wade had used him.

Yet he had acted so gently, too, not at all in a way Peter had expected a demon would act. Wade could have done anything he wanted to, really, and Peter would taken any abuse to get May back. He could have broken his bones and left him within an inch of life if it pleased him. He settled for a much less debilitating payment.

Peter waits, senses Wade's presence and spins to face the demon who is never there. The sinking feeling is one he convinces himself isn't disappointment.

That night, lying in bed, he thinks about Wade.

Peter exhales into the semi darkness of his bedroom. August warmth has made the room stuffy, and he's reminded of the heat Wade radiated. The smell of ozone wafts in through his open window, a clatter of sounds carried on the breeze. A dog howling, a couple bickering on the street below, the vroom and clunk of a truck shifting gears. And in the distance, the sad wail of a trumpet.

It's the typical noise pollution of the city, it shouldn't irk him. These are the sounds he's heard all his life. But tonight he can't stop thinking about the silence that came with summoning Wade. Can't stop thinking about Wade's voice and how he wants to hear it again.

He dreams of Wade.

The demon looks at him sadly, regretfully. He reaches to touch Wade and finds himself suddenly paralyzed. Wade touches him everywhere. Shame burns Peter when he opens his mouth to protest and pleas for more tumble out. Wade treats him like he's made of glass and forces every last bit of pleasure from his body.

It's wrong and so good.

Peter wakes up to see he had shucked off his underwear sometime in the night and orgasmed in his sleep. Nocturnal emissions, a wet dream. Peter can chalk it up to that and nothing more.

Until it happens again. And again.

He dreams about Wade every night and every night he's needier. In a particularly nice dream Wade lays beside him after making him shiver with orgasm, covers his body with his much larger one. Peter thinks he can feel the demon's weight at his back until morning rouses him into full awareness to see he is alone.

As the bleariness clears from his eyes the emptiness he feels gnawing at him more and more stretches a little wider. He looks out at his room, expecting to see something amiss.

Everything is as he'd left it the night before.

Heaving a sigh Peter grabs a new pair of underwear and pajama pants he takes with him to the bathroom. Steam fills the room. The showers hot spray does nothing to erase Wade's phantom touch and Peter sinks to sit cross legged on the floor. He sees himself reaching for the tubs plug, feels it click down into place along with the spigot, but he is almost not in control of his actions.

Water rises around him slowly and he lies back, a strange numbness overcoming him. May is in her bedroom, probably asleep with an open book laying on her chest. A compelling mystery she either couldn't resist binge reading or took to for comfort after failing to find sleep. On her nightstand is a cup of tea left to go cold, chamomile with honey. She'll wake within the hour and go into the kitchen wearing her tacky satin robe to brew coffee. When Peter comes out, hair wet and dripping from his shower, she'll ask if he wants eggs or pancakes because she always makes breakfast on Saturday morning.

May is alive and all of these things are possible.

Water covers him.

What if she wasn't alive? What if Tony had been a fraction too late and he had made it into the ocean that night, stayed under long enough to fall into a coma but not into the blackness of death? This could all be a dream, a ruse his mind created.

He doesn't notice that he hasn't been breathing until his lungs are aching. He lurches forward gasping, heart pounding. With shaking hands Peter pulls the plug. The water drains around him and he hugs his knees to his chest, shivering.

He's back in Tony's home, May is decaying in the earth. He's under the water while Tony sits outside the bathroom door waiting for FRIDAY to give the word.

Peter wraps himself in a towel and slumps against a wall. His hand rises to absentmindedly rub at the scar Wade had left behind and that no one else was able to see. His fog smeared reflection stares back at him. He looks serious in a way he hadn't before May's death, the lightness in his neutral expression replaced by something darker.

He knows what he needs to do.

That night Peter pulls his suit from the closet. Karen greets him happily. People wave when they see him. He stops two muggings, one armed robbery, and helps an elderly couple apprehend their rambunctious dog. The whoosh of air around him is a much missed feeling and Peter whoops as he swings from building to building. The stomach dropping sensation of falling through the air makes the emptiness he feels vanish.

He lands on a flat topped roof, breathing heavily from the adrenaline coursing through him. Being Spider-Man is something he hadn't known was missing from his life until he found it. Now he can't imagine being just Peter Parker. Spider-Man is an integral part of who he is. Something he stumbled into and realized, this feels right. This feels like it was meant to be.

His grin slowly falls as the adrenaline fades and his head tips back. Stars shine like diamonds scattered on black velvet and the hollowness returns with one thought.

 _Wade_.


	3. Chapter 3

Faith

I whisper your name like a prayer - with all the hope of heaven.

I trace the lines of your palm and draw a map to salvation.

I hear the knock of your heart and I answer it like my calling."

― Lang Leav, Memories

* * *

The day's heat has yet to fade and sweat collects in the crease of Peter's elbows, matts his hair to his head. Light reflects off a thousand windows and he squints, fights to repress the wetness burning his eyes. He tells himself the tears are only from the glare, and not from the hole torn into his chest.

He had begun his patrol hours ago, told Karen to listen in on police scanners and swung relentlessly to each call. His arms ached, he'd almost dislocated his shoulder and bruised his knee doing an impractical superhero landing, but the pain distracted him from all the things he wanted to forget.

The night is in a lull now, and the throbbing pain in his body is no more than a dull ache. _It's not enough._ Memories that had ebbed during the day rush back like the high tide, drowning him. He closes his eyes and sees Wade's face, blurred from sleep and inches from his own. Soft morning light glows on his body, stretched across Peter's bed. The demon smiles at him automatically, as if his attention, no matter how mundane, warnented joy.

"You're beautiful when you sleep." Wade says, brushing mused hair out of his face and letting his hand rest on Peter's nape. He leans in, kisses him, and the memory recedes.

Despite the warmth his skin is bristled with goosebumps, a phantom's touch defiling him even though it is gone. Nothing but a memory-a ghost. It can't hurt him now. _It never had hurt him._

No, he thinks vehemently. Wade's touch may not have given the inky stain of bruises, but that didn't mean it hadn't _hurt_. Every tender brush of scarred hands on his flesh, all those loving kisses, had left him violated, tarnished.

God, he thought Wade _cared-_

He had been a fool to let himself fall for a demon's ruse.

The skyline burns with red sunlight that tapers into softer tones of pink and orange across the clouds. Peter glances up to see the last strip of lavender-blue be overtaken by the rosy hues. It is a beautiful sight. One that does not match the darkness he's brooding with.

Swirling inside him is a tempest. Lightning that cracks through torrents of pelting rain and thunder that booms with the anger of Zeus. His world is darkened by endless storm clouds that seem they will never dissipate, never give way for a rainbow or sunshine.

But above him is a calm sky. Beyond his inner turmoil is a world unperturbed by his troubles. Millions of people who go on with their lives, not knowing the pain he has endured. And, Peter knows, millions who have led lives much worse than his. He is not the only person to lose loved ones, or to have their heart broken.

Yet he is young and heartbreak seems akin to the end of days. He lacks the perspective of years to temper the folly of youth. Distantly, he's aware of this. Maybe when he's an adult, married with children of his own, he will remember this and laugh because he will know it is a blimp in a lifetime of joys. It's a nice thought-one that provides no comfort to the pain he feels. Right now it's impossible to think of the future because everything he wants for is in the past.

The shattering of his heart feels permanent, and that he might pick up the broken, gleaming pieces and put them back together is a thought perished before it is born.

For Peter, this is a kind of loss not experienced. He's lost parents to a plane crash, an uncle to a gunshot wound he pressed shaking hands over, blood gushing out between his fingers and forever staining them.

He's stumbled upon May's body, cold from death and dripping bathwater.

Death is a thing Peter Parker is too well versed in. He knows the agony and despair like he knows the streets of his neighborhood. The loss of a lover, however, is something Peter has no previous reference for. When May died his will to go on died with her and he had been a ghost whose heart had yet to cease beating, his world plunged into a prison of darkness from which he could fathom no escape.

Salvation came in the most unexpected forms; a disfigured demon and Peter's naked body laid out on the dirty floor, muscles taut as a bowstring. Fingers curling into strong shoulders and his arms reaching to pull Wade closer, his body shielding Peter from the reality of his life and giving him shelter from all strenuous thought.

A convent with a demon rose May from the dead like Lazarus. Light returned with a brilliance he'd never known. And then things settled into place. A sadness that hadn't existed before opened itself inside him, a yawning maw from which something was missing. At first Peter mistook this feeling to merely be the sudden loss of grief that the human heart wasn't meant to experience. After all, the dead are not built to rise again.

But then Wade invaded his dreams, his life, and filled the hollowness. Everything became saturated with colors that bled and swirled together into incredible new shades. The world was vibrant, the future bright.

Sitting on the ledge of a building, his legs swinging over the side of a sheer drop, Peter sighs. He draws his legs up and hugs his knees. No matter what he does, he can't push Wade from his thoughts. Is unable to forget solemnly spoken secrets and inhuman eyes staring into his like they held the answer to everything. What Wade might have thought that only makes Peter feel sicker. That Wade could have the ability to be sincere and loving makes this separation hurt more.

He aches for Wade's arms around him, that broad chest flush against his own, his head tucked under the man's chin. The rumble of his laugh, the sound of his voice, like silk and kerosene. How right it had felt to lay atop Wade in his bed, his ear pressed to the demon's chest and hearing the heavy thud of his heartbeat. Wade's fingers trailing down the length of his naked back felt like the stuff of fantasies, and recalling this causes bile to rise in Peter's throat.

These things he shouldn't desire, and his want leaves him sickened with his neediness. This sudden emptiness. He had been fine before Wade came into his life, hadn't known his capacity to feel love and pleasure was sleeping until Wade stirred it to wakefulness. It is impossible to return to that slumber, to the dreams he once cherished when he soundly slept.

Peter rises and stands at the edge of his rooftop perch, his toes extending past the concrete. If he took one more step, there would be nothing but air to catch him. He would plummet towards the unforgiving earth, and if he could fight the instinct to fling a hand out, casting a web, his body would smack against the pavement with a sickening crack. Or would he bounce?

Peter's not sure, but he knows that neither will happen. If he truly stepped off the roof and failed to catch himself, Karen would deploy the parachute Tony built into his suit. The AI would immediately alert Tony to his transgression and the man would leave the comfort of his bed to come to Peter's aid. He knows this because they've played this game before. Tony just didn't know it.

No, if he really wanted to die, he'd shed his suit and web canisters. In doing so he would condemn May and all his other loved ones to the misery he'd suffered. Except they wouldn't be foolish enough to seek the service of a demon.

"Peter?" Karan asks. "I'm detecting an elevated heart rate, are you in distress?"

On their deathbed, is this what people think about? Lost loves and regrets, sweetly whispered lies and feather light touches in the dark? Will Wade be what Peter thinks about when he breathes his last breaths?

He peers over the edge, contemplates the distance.

 _How did he get here?_

* * *

Wade appears in Peter's dreams every night. He will be in the darkness of sleep and soft touches will permeate the black. Fingertips drag up the backs of his legs, a kiss pressed on the inside of his ankle. Reverent caresses follow his sides from his ribs to his hips.

The touch feels startlingly real and for a moment Peter is back in Strange's study. Trapped in a demons embrace and struggling to breathe through the heat Wade radiated, his lungs unable to completely fill. Despite his surprise Peter can't move to react. His dream version of Wade is gentle and attentive, peppering kisses onto his skin or doing sinful things with his tongue.

After a few nights Peter lets himself sink fully into the dream, becoming an active participant rather than a passive one. He sighs Wade's name, and in his semi-awareness he tries not to say it so loudly that May could hear it.

That would be an all new kind of embarrassing. He's endured Flash shoving his lunch tray into him, toilet paper stuck to his shoe, awkward flirting with Liz, and many other embarrassing occupational hazards of high school. But May walking in on him dry humping his pillow and moaning would literally kill him. No one is too young to have a heart attack in that situation.

He sees Wade's muscled, scarred body every time he closes his eyes, and his fantasies start to assault him during the day, filling his mind with fog and want. He recalls the weight of Wade's cock on his tongue and his jaw aches with the craving for it. When had he become so depraved?

He'd had sexual encounters with a high school crush, a girl with long black hair and dimples. Her arm had looped around his, their shoulders flush as they walked into their school dance. Peter used the dance moves May taught him and at the end of the night they followed the trope many of their classmates were. Leaving prom, drunk from spiked punch or off of swigs from stolen flasks, and stumbling their way to an empty house or motel room.

She kissed him, her perfume crashing over him in waves. Coconut and sea salt, burning his nostrils. They fumbled awkwardly, and found their knowledge from sex ED to be woefully inadequate. In the end he accidently pulled her hair and she elbowed him in the face because they were both too embarrassed to leave the lights on. They found completion and afterwards they were both so terrified Peter's condom wasn't adequate they bought an after pill, shame faced while the cashier smirked.

Being with Wade hadn't felt anything like that. It was as if he were drunk off champagne air, truly intoxicated in a way that wasn't possible because of his healing factor. The demon's touch was a blossom of warmth through a lifetime of cold. He had leaned into every caress, said words of devotion. Had earnestly wanted more of Wade's poison on his lips, the bitter taste of him on his tongue.

What's wrong with him?

Wade's memory circulates relentlessly in Peter's mind and the more he thinks of the demon the more he wants to see him again. That he wants to have Wade again is something he won't admit to, even in the safety of his mind.

It's only a matter of time before his hormones get the better of him and after he's sure May is asleep, he double checks to make sure his door is locked and eases off his pajama pants. Beyond his closed curtains night has fallen over the city, and a dry wind twists through dense clusters of buildings, rocking the tops of skyscrapers. He can feel the storm brewing, the tingle of electricity dancing across his skin even though no lightning has broken the cover of clouds. It intensifies the light trace of his fingertips on his sides. He experimentally tweaks a nipple, and discovers his stimulations are not as good as Wade's. Real or otherwise.

But he is a teenage boy and getting hard is not a feat.

Conjuring the demons image causes a twinge of guilt, like he is doing something heinous, taboo. He was not raised religiously. May grew up in a catholic household and hadn't thought enough of it in adulthood to pass her faith onto her nephew. But he'd studied the concept at school, learned the rules from friends. This, he knows, is sin. It shouldn't matter, he reasons, what he thinks about while he jerks himself off. No one would ever know, no one except him. And that is a secret he can carry with him to the grave.

He imagines Wade kissing him, his legs wrapped around the man's waist. His hips grind up into the air. A hand wanders up to his head and fingers grip his hair, hard enough to make pain bloom over his scalp. The other hand dips to Peter's balls and he thinks about Wade's fingers inside of him.

The energy in the room shifts. A flash of lightning seeps through his curtains, followed by the boom of thunder.

Peter pretends Wade is there with him, his massive hand around both of their cocks and rubbing them together. The bite mark on his neck tingles.

Wade's name drips out of his mouth like honey, and the sound of it feels right in his mouth. Pleasure coils in his stomach and his thighs feel loose with warmth while his calves clench, unintentionally making him hold his breath. A few airless seconds pass and the knot in his gut tightens. He remembers Wade's hand on his throat, pinning him to the floor. Bare and helpless. A shiver travels up Peter's spine and colored dots invade the black behind his eyelids. He curls forward and has to inhale just before he comes. It is an experience eerily similar to being under the water in Tony's bathtub, lungs burning.

The teenager collapses into a limp puddle, sated and sticky with come and sweat.

Once lazily wiped clean drifting into sleep is easy. The mattress dips as Wade lays next to him, gathers him into a loving embrace. He strokes his hair and rests his chin on Peter's shoulder. Those deft hands do not move to bring him to another orgasm. Instead one buries in his curls, not the demanding grip from their first encounter. It's something lighter, caring. Wade's other arm curls around Peter's waist.

The phantom tells him he's beautiful, perfect. That artists throughout the ages could not hold a candle to him and never would. They always make angels look too human.

"I love you like an angel loves God." Wade murmurs, combing his unruly hair back and pressing a tender kiss to Peter's forehead.

"Love you too," he says in his sleep.

Peter wakes up to wet cheeks and tears caught in his lashes. The hollowness pulses inside him and he hears the echoing of his voice, desperate, overwrought.

"I'm yours," he had told Wade. Only now does Peter realize how he had meant those words. "Ruin me." He had said.

And Wade has.

* * *

Wicker baskets brimming with various stones and shelves laden with handmade candles take up most of the store's tiny space. A glass case, prominently displaying the statues of numerous religions, catches his eye. He recognizes a few of the icons; Greek and Pagan deities, declared heathen Gods by a burgeoning theology whose rapid expanse was like a wildfire, choking off the ancient ways.

There are patron saints and angels. A bronze Aphrodite with flowing hair, one of her delicate feet placed in front of the other on her seashell pedestal. Beside the Goddess is a male figure crafted from silver. He stands tall and proud, one eye covered by a patch and a spear grasped in his hand. Odin, Peter can guess. He wonders if Thor would think this replica accurate.

His gaze travels over the Gods and Goddesses, searching for one that could offer him protection, sympathy. Salvation. They each prove to be equally unknowable, all belonging to a faith he has learned about only intellectually. His heart is not filled with the belief and love he thinks is required to pray. If he were to sink to his knees and bow his head, hands clasped around prayer beads, his display would lack the humbleness of a man raised to trust in something he has no proof of.

If he spoke aloud to something he couldn't see or sense, would it be any different from talking to himself?

A poised Buddha carved from smooth jade stops his wandering gaze. She is a wide faced woman sitting cross legged on a lily pad, her hands folded in her lap, eyes half lidded and downcast. Perfectly shaped lips are pulled into a smile, with a guise so real he finds himself pausing to see if they might part, the tiny Goddess suddenly real with a breath and voice that would speak to him.

Share some kind of wisdom, point him in another direction for the path he's set upon could only lead to disaster.

He leans in closer, nose almost pressed to the glass, and holds his breath, waiting. He'd drawn a pentagram on decrepit floorboards, sounded out the words of a dead language and summoned a demon. Had given himself to a demon. He had been granted super powers from a spider's bite. It had been proven that the impossible could become reality, why was it so far fetched that a deity speak from a figurine? See his need and come alive before his eyes, offer the guidance he so desperately needed.

"Guan Yin," a voice says from behind, and he turns, heart jackrabbiting. A woman with an infected nose ring piercing laughs. "Sorry," she says lightly. "You're looking at this one, right? That's Guan Yin, she's a Goddess of Mercy. Her name means the one who hears the sounds of the world. She's seventy dollars."

Peter glances at the statue, wants the comfort of her, glassy jade against his palm. Wants to believe in the Chinese Goddess, believe she hears his cries, but he feels undeserving of divine protection. He had been raised with no religion, no God to hear his cries. He could no more pray to Guan Yin than he could to Christ.

In a world where anything is possible, he has seen only the proof of demons.

He asks the saleswoman for something to protect him from evil and she plucks a narrow box up, incense rattling inside, without a second's hesitation. She doesn't spare a skeptical glance and Peter goes on his way, grateful.

Now the air lays thick with the haze of smoke curling up from joss sticks. May is at work and the joss burning in the kitchen is a safeguard against the danger he is inviting. A familiar pentagram is drawn on the linoleum in dry erase marker. Clenched and wrinkling in his fingers are pages ripped and stolen from a book. Wade's incantation, snagged while Strange's watchful eye was looking elsewhere. Eyes that shifted from the pale green of sea glass to aquamarine depending on the light. Peter has a feeling Strange's eyes would darken if he confessed his sins to the wizard. He'd demand to know what he'd done, and Peter would look at the floor in shame, mumble an answer. Would Strange help him? _Could_ he help?

Peter doesn't have the answer to that, although he can surmise what would happen if he told Strange the truth. The man would tell Tony, and Tony would be furious and disgusted and heartbroken. Then he'd tell May and she wouldn't look at Peter the same way again. So he keeps his secrets to himself.

He got himself into this mess and he can get himself out.

As he reads Wade's incantation a cold stillness befalls the room.

It was a bad idea summoning the demon the first time.

It is a terrible idea to summon him a second. But something inside of him is irreparably broken since meeting the creature and he needs to know what Wade has done to him. Why his memory refuses to leave his mind, why his likeness haunts and blesses his dreams with loving touches and sweet whispers that get lost in the darkness.

Something that is not entirely in his power compels him to continue, and that's just what he does.

A blinding flash of light floods the room and Peter blinks in the aftermath. When his vision focuses he sees Wade standing in his summoning circle, an unreadable expression on his face.

"You're tempting fate, angel."

"What did you do to me?" Peter demands, and Wade's eyes widen a fraction. The boy goes on before he can interject. "What spell did you cast on me? I can't stop thinking about you, I feel… I feel something foreign inside me." These are not the things he intends to say. They slip away from him, all the secrets and thoughts he's locked within himself bursting forth unabashedly to a creature he should not entrust them to.

But he can not take back words already spoken and he looks pleadingly to Wade for answers. The demon bursts into raucous laughter.

"Is-is this some pathetic human fantasy?" He asks between huffs. "Do you think I put a love curse on you? Because, sorry to disappoint, angel, that's not my style."

"Then-" Peter's torso juts forward, his teeth bared in aggression and a finger pointed accusingly at Wade. "You're lying," he snarls.

Wade's mouth twists into an infuriatingly smug grin. "Anything you feel is on you, sweetheart. I didn't do anything to that pretty head of yours."

Peter seethes through gritted teeth and it is a great effort to reign his fury in.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

The demon shrugs. "You don't. But you're the one who summoned me. You never had to see me again, yet here we are."

"You… you weren't going to come back?" Peter asks, and he hates how his voice wobbles.

Wade studies him, and his cocky facade drains away into something more sincere. He looks tired and gently remorseful, and a part of Peter wants to comfort the creature.

"If I were to hold you in my arms, I would merely kill all that is beautiful about you."

Peter can detect no falsehood in Wade's words, and suddenly the longing he's been afflicted with makes a bit more sense. It's possible he genuinely liked Wade, and while that is a frightening prospect, it is one Peter can consider.

Their meeting had been brief, but so intimate.

Peter walks through his better judgments and into Wade's summoning circle. The proximity allows him to feel what he had that day. Heat invades his lungs and overwhelms his senses.

He had given himself to the demon, had shown total submission and it had felt _good_.

"I'm yours," he had said. "Ruin me."

Ruin him Wade has, for any other person, any other romance.

"I…" He starts, and finds he doesn't know what he wants to say. Wade's hand finds his hip, a steady weight there, grounding. "I want to know you." He says, head tipping back so he can look Wade in the eye.

* * *

Watching Peter is all Wade does. He takes in the boy's movements like they're part of some intricate dance, listens to his mutterings like they're gospel. Peter is an oasis in the desert, a blessed reprieve from his Hell. Taking from Peter is dipping his sand covered body into clear water and drinking its sweetness. Letting it wash over and cleanse him.

Wade is aware of the natures of his sins-they are acts he committed knowingly, mostly. The early days of his rebirth into Hell had been lost in a haze of prattling, manic voices and the screams of his victims, the gurgle of blood in their chests. These things he remembers, the thrill of murder, the rush of adrenalin from having control over another's life.

His sins hadn't weighed on him before Peter. Since meeting the boy, and subsequently stalking and molesting him, he feels acutely aware that not only did he know what sin was but that he was committing it over and over. And this knowledge makes his stomach twist with something that must be guilt.

All other deaths and misfortune on his hands are inconsequential; Peter, however, is everything. In truth the guilt he feels is not for his actions, but the consequences they might cause. Therein lay the genuine evil of his situation.

In another life, an alternative present, this could all be glorious. Love shared, in body and spirit, like that of saints and the devoted. Most mortal souls give themselves up on the altar of love at some point in their lives, how many were known to do so after death?

That is a question that lingers on Wade's mind, although it is the wrong question. He is no longer a mere mortal soul, and neither is Peter. Both have been contorted into more than what they were born as. A soul of light, and one of darkness, twisted by uncontrollable circumstances and their choices. No, the question now is could either find balance in the other.

Wade does not believe he can be redeemed, even by his angel's hand. He could only drag the beautiful boy into his own damnation with his insatiable hunger. There could be no happily ever after. He and Peter are not star-crossed lovers, destined to find one another in every life. He is a monster who a pure soul stumbled upon, and he is too selfish to deny himself the sweetness of Peter. Staying unseen is a thinly veiled kindness, one that is inherently self-serving. In this way he takes all Peter couldn't possibly want to give and protects the light his angel exudes. The light he is drawn to, the light part of him wants to smother.

The boy could never want a monster like him.

 _And yet-_

Peter summons him. Looks at him, fearful and confused. A sundry of emotions flash behind those eyes.

"I want to know you." Peter says, sincere and unaware of what his words mean. He couldn't possibly know what Wade would take them to mean. If he did he would not say them.

He kisses Wade. Innocent and gentle, as light as a butterfly landing on a flower.

The demon's self control vanishes. Hands that have ended lives cup Peter's face and the boy leans almost intrinsically into his touch. Brown eyes are half lidded, his gaze trailing down from Wade's face to his chest.

"Do you want to know me?" Peter doesn't look at his face when asks, and Wade laughs.

"I feel as if I have known you forever." He says, and it's the truth.

Peter smiles, bright, and sweet, and tentative. It's not the toothy, crooked grin he gives when he's amused. This smile is hopeful, and Wade gets swept up in the beauty of it. Hope blossoms in the heart he'd thought too broken to hold love.

He grabs Peter's hands, small and delicate, in his own. The difference between them is stark. One pair is smooth with humanity and youth, and the other is disfigured, bloodstained. Peter can't see the sin etched into those hands, and Wade resolves then to keep it that way.

"When you look at me," he hears himself say. "I don't want you to see the things I've done, I want you to see all the things I'm going to do for you."

Peter's breath catches.

"What have you done?" He whispers into the semi-darkness of the apartment, the afternoon sun diffused by drawn curtains and stray shafts of light illuminating wafts of smoke.

"Sick, terrible things." Wade squeezes those perfect hands. "Things that sent me to hell. Things that would make Spider-Man furious."

"Can you show me?"

His mouth twitches into a rueful smile. "Let me see you like you've seen me." Peter persists, sounding helplessly in love. That his emotions are based on a lie and a bit of magic is something that makes anxious nausea swirl in Wade's gut.

Guilt for his wrongdoings and lies, he knows.

The demon shakes his head. "If I show you, you'll despise me." He envelopes the other in a hug. "Just… just for a little while, I want to know what your love feels like. Please."

Peter is quiet, and then, "okay." A moment of thought. "I can wait until you're ready to share all of yourself."

It's a weird thing to say, to someone who is essentially a stranger. A one night stand-turned infatuation. It's the sort of thing said to someone loved and trusted, the thing said to a lover in the hours of early morning when loneliness is strongest.

It is not something Wade ever thought would be said to him.

He supposes, if Peter knew what he'd done, he wouldn't say those things. He wonders, then, how long he can get Peter to tell him that sort of lovely thing.


End file.
